Triple G in Lee’s sights as Conlan plans next move
ANDY Lee has two things on his mind. One is world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, the other being the anticipated arrival of his first child this summer.
The latter is the priority and the excitement means that the Limerick man is likely to take a short break from the ring until he makes his return in September.
The 32-year-old will hope to avoid allowing rust settle in once again following his successful comeback fight in New York over the weekend.
Lee defeated Alabama’s cagey KeAndrae Leatherwood at Madison Square Garden in what was his first fight since the loss of his WBO world title to England’s Billy Joe Saunders in Manchester back in December, 2015.
Featuring on the undercard of world middleweight champion Golovkin’s points win over Daniel Jacobs, the southpaw recorded a no-nonsense, eight-round unanimous decision.
Lee admitted that is was an underwhelming performance but he was happy to shake off his ring rust as he looks to chase a title shot against the dangerous ‘Triple G’ Golovkin.
‘In an ideal world, I’ll win the world title again… so that’s what I am out to do, but we’ll see,’ said Lee on his remaining ring ambitions. ‘I’d like to fight Triple G of course, he’s the best.’
Ironically, Saunders is now a stablemate of Lee under trainer Adam Booth and the Englishman is a likely candidate to get a shot at the true middleweight champion as Golovkin expressed his desire to face him before Mexican Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.
‘Saunders is my dream fight for unifying all the middleweight titles,’ he said. ‘It is my ambition to take from him the only belt I am missing. So yes, I definitely want to fight him before the big drama against Canelo Alvarez.’
Lee will have to bide his time but added: ‘I’m ready for the fight if it ever came my way. I know you wouldn’t believe it on that performance [against Leatherwood], but I know I’m ready and it’s about levels and the competition you’re in with… so we’ll see.’
Michael Conlan, meanwhile, has two potential fight dates lined up for his next ring outing after a victorious debut in the Big Apple.
The Belfast native attracted a sell-out crowd of 5,102 boisterous Irish fans to the Madison Square Garden Theater on Friday.
Conor McGregor walked the 25year-old into the ring ahead of his third-round stoppage win over American Tim Ibarra as Conlan had a McGregor-esque level of hype attached to his debut.
A potential May fight date in Boston could see the Olympian fight in front of another predominantly Irish-American crowd. Alternatively, Conlan could feature on the same fight card as Olympic rival Shakur Stevenson’s debut on April 22 in California.
‘From a hype point of view it would be good to go to Boston and build straight off the back of what’s happened in New York,’ said Conlan’s manager, Matthew Macklin, the former European middleweight champion. ‘But it wouldn’t do any harm from building a fight [against Stevenson]… to go to [California].
‘[It would be] a bit more low key… He could settle down and then that will be like a real pro debut,’ added Macklin, referring to the relatively anxious performance last Friday.
Conlan easily stopped Ibarra by overwhelming him with punches in the third round but lacked composure at times in front of a wild crowd.
Five years to the day since Macklin lost out to then-world middleweight kingpin Sergio Martinez at the same venue, Conlan’s manager said: ‘It reminded me of when I knocked Martinez down and when that happened, you could hear the volume rapidly increasing.
‘There was a little rush of blood to the head, he got excited and the crowd went bananas, so it was natural that he went for the finish.’